1. Field of the Invention
The invention relates to stored information systems. More particularly, it relates to the recording and management of relationships between data objects and their dependencies and can identify and manage families or sets that need to be treated as a unit.
2. Description of the Related Art
Today's stored information systems (e.g., database management systems, file management system, etc.) optionally allow objects defined within the system to be related to (i.e., dependent upon) other objects defined within the stored information system in numerous complex ways. Often these interdependency relationships are not easily identifiable or documented as participating in an application set (i.e., a set of files/database tables/metadata, etc. that needs to be maintained as a consistent unit at all times). While it is common to have good documentation of individual objects and their parts, relationships between all objects included in an application are not, generally, fully documented. This is due, in part, to the breadth of detail associated with capturing a complete set of object relationships related to a specific application set. The granularity of the required information spans from complete objects to elements. Furthermore, the human effort required to collect and continuously maintain such an information base is significant and a single omission can negate the value of all efforts made.
An application set includes documented and undocumented relationships between objects associated with an application or capability supported by the stored information system. To assure consistency, objects associated with an application set should be treated on an all or nothing basis. For example, backup and recovery operations should include all tables and other objects associated with an application set to assure integrity of all the information needed to support the common application or capability.
Consistency of the application set requires backup and recovery of all the objects in the set to the same point in time. Knowing the objects associated with an application set, therefore, is very useful knowledge for planning backup and recovery strategies, storage assignments, disaster recovery, performance analysis, archiving, selective partial archiving, relocation, replication, capacity planning and other uses.
Computer based systems undergo constant maintenance and migration of objects and applications. With addition, deletion, and archiving of objects and applications it is common for one or more objects associated with an application set to be omitted from critical administrative procedures, thus jeopardizing the integrity of the application set and jeopardizing full operational processing capability, either immediately, or at some future point in time when, for example, defective archives are used in an attempt to restore a fully operational system. This is especially true for internally developed applications with which support staff may be unfamiliar and/or applications containing some stored information system objects the use of which is occasional or dynamic.
Hence, there remains a strong need for methods, apparatuses, and interfaces that allow stored information system object relationship information to be discovered, stored and maintained. Further, there is a strong need for object relationship information that can be used to streamline stored information system administration processes and to assure consistency of stored information system application sets.